


Making a Home

by Carbocat



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: Abandonment, Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Awkwardness, F/M, Foster Care, Foster Parent Glenn Sturgis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:21:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23945371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbocat/pseuds/Carbocat
Summary: “These guys are the good ones, remember? You know, I wouldn’t leave you there if I didn’t think that.”Rex kept telling him that they weren’t going to put him in a home that wasn’t safe and loving. He kept telling him that there were a lot of kids out there with family members that could take them and decided not to, for whatever reason, and those kids end up in great homes, but Jonah knew how the system worked. He read The New York Times and The Washington Post. He watched Law and Order.
Relationships: Amy Dubanowski & Jonah Simms, Glenn Sturgis/Jersuha Sturgis
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Making a Home

Making a Home

If all the world was a stage and all the men and women were actors in some big production, entering and exiting on the cues. If everybody was hitting their marks and belting out the right notes, and everything happened as a part of a script then act one of Jonah’s story began and ended in the backseat of a gray Honda Civic.

Not the same Honda Civic that his parents brought him home from the hospital in, but close enough. It wasn’t the Honda Civic that they were driving the first time he left the state, or saw the ocean, or went to Disneyland. It wasn’t the Honda Civic that he cried in every time his mother drove him to basketball practice at the Jewish center or the one that bounced his knee nervously in on the way to Thespian Camp, but it was the one that he had his first kiss in.

It was the Honda Civic with the strict no food policy and the one that they found a lipstick tube a different shade than what his mother wore. It was the Honda Civic that his dad told him that he cheated on his mother in, the one that they drove to see Nana in the hospital when her Alzheimer’s got really bad.

He watched his parents die in the wreckage of that gray Honda Civic, too.

His oldest brother, Jacob, took him to watch the car get crushed by one of those big industrial car crushers at the junkyard. He said that it’d be therapeutic even though all it was, was weird.

If the world was a stage and they were all playing their parts in a story called life than act two didn’t really began until he was in the passenger seat of a cherry red Toyota Prius, watching the _Now Leaving Illinois_ sign passing by and thinking about how he’d never been out of the state without one of his parents driving him. Act two began with narration done in one of those big cheesy over-the-top voices that boomed over videos of cashiers smiling in big box store commercials, advertising sales and deals like, _we got everything you’ll ever need in the Great American Midwest._

He closed his eyes and pictured the stage.

He pictured the dim lights and the painted sets, and the way that everything would be coated in that wet dog smell of still-drying paint because Sally Marks decided that they needed more _pizazz_ in their rolling green hills, in their miles upon miles upon miles of corn fields and random barn animals on the side of the road. He pictured the signs that passed to indicate a grand journey from Chicago to St. Louis – _Welcome to the rest of your life._

The big box store voice narrated inside of his head in its loud booming voice, _do you want to be thinner? Fatter? Happier? Sadder? Are you looking for a new sister? A new brother? New parents? Missouri is the place to be._

Jonah gritted his teeth tighter into a smile for nobody and he forced himself to stop thinking about his mom, his dad, about Jacob and Josh, about Thespian Club and the school paper, about everything he was leaving behind in Chicago. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth until his whole head ached and his ears started ringing, and he shrugged off the memory like he had shrugged off Jacob’s heavy hand on his shoulder.

His mind scratched like radio static, like an old suit that fit stiff and uncomfortable, and all he could think about was the way the dirt smelled at the funeral. All he could think about was rain on the highway and Jacob in his military dress uniform, fresh off a plane, and kneeling in the dirt of his parents double funeral, telling him like Mom wouldn’t be pissed that he was getting the knees of his uniform dirty, “I know it’s tough but I think this is the best option we got, buddy. At least until my tour is over or Josh is done with business school, we’ll reassess our situation then.”

All he could think of was the way that Josh’s shoulders bunched up and how his tucked his hands into his armpits, and the way that he defended the importance of finishing his masters without having a fifteen year old kid saddled to him. No one was arguing with him. No one said anything about grad school or dirty knees, or the plane ticket Jacob had tucked into his pocket for the very next day.

He bit down on the thought but he could crush it, couldn’t swallow it down to where he didn’t have to think about the way Josh slouched in the backseat of Jacob’s car because Jonah couldn’t – he didn’t want to sit in the backseat anymore – messing with the windows. It went up. It went down, up, - “You can’t have everything, Jonah. You don’t get everything.”

In Missouri, he could find a new place with new conflicts, with new brothers to replace the ones that got on planes back to work and school. He could find peace there, or friendship, or love, maybe.

Maybe he could find new parents or brothers that wanted him.

He bit down on that bitterness, _it’s not like that._

“I think you’re really going to like it here, J-Dawg.”

Jonah opened his eyes and uncemented his teeth, “Yeah.”

Rex was looking at him, eyes flickering from the road to Jonah, and back. He nodded once and then Jonah nodded and he lied. “I’m really excited.”

“Yeah?”

“Totally, yeah.”

“That’s what I want to hear, Iceman.”

Rex was his social worker.

He was a very personable man, made everything sound like the best sales pitch you’d ever hear. Some people would say that he was too friendly (Josh did) and a little too _much_ (Jacob did) all the time, but he was everything that Jonah thought he might have been like as an adult if things had been different. If he didn’t have a death grip on the door handle and he wasn’t leaving Chicago for the first time without his parents, and if his brothers didn’t abandon him and his parents weren’t – “Jonah.”

“Yeah?” He said, smiling reflectively. He forced his hand to uncurl from the door and shoved it into his lap. “Yeah, sorry. I – what was that?”

“I asked if you were listening.”

“I am.”

There used to be this joke. This funny little something that used to entertain his brothers, that his mom would talk about fondly over the phone with her friends.

It was _funny_.

His brothers used to work him up into a frenzy that, in reflection, was pretty funny. They were a lot older than him – there was a ten year age gap between him and Josh, a thirteen year difference between him and Jacob – so it was funny that he believed in the dumb stuff they’d tell him.

They totally got him.

Mom would tell them that they could only get one kind of sugary cereal from the store. He’d want to get Fruity Pebbles and they’d want Lucky Charms even though they knew that he hated soggy marshmallows. They’d scuff their shoes and sag their shoulders, and tell him in these really put-out voices that he’d need to change his mind.

They’d tell him that they’d sell him off to the highest bidder for a brother who didn’t _suck_ if he didn’t. They’d say that Mr. Mooney from next door would probably out bid everybody and make him eat soft cucumbers and squishy bananas for the rest of his life. It was really funny.

It was funny. It was hilarious.

He told Rex about it once.

He’d tell him about it again, but Rex was talking about road construction and the Ariana Grande song on the radio. The moment had passed. He’d tell him about it later and they could laugh about it again and –

“Goddamn it!”

Jonah inhaled sharply, bracing himself as the car jolted to the left when the Ford Escape in front of them slammed on their breaks without warning. Rex righted the car with only mild complaint and a hefty curse.

He laid on his horn and the Ford Escape flipped them off.

Jonah’s shoulder was patted. He was encouraged, “Hey, flip the bird back, Iceman. That asshole deserves it.”

Jonah didn’t because his hand was back on the door handle and he couldn’t make himself move it. His fingernails were dug so deep into the leather that little half crescent moons were going to be there forever.

He should feel bad about it because this wasn’t his car, wasn’t his parents gray Honda Civic, and Rex was being really nice about driving him to another state, but Jonah didn’t feel bad.

He felt mind panic.

He felt – he felt a tingling kind of numb all the way down to his fingertips and the car kept going, and going, and going because they didn’t rear-end the Escape. They didn’t crash the car so, _so calm down, Jonah._

This was his Kerouacian adventure.

He always said that he was going to hit the road one day and follow the stars, he just didn’t think it was going to come with a body count.

He wondered if Jack Kerouac felt this way when he said, _there was nowhere to go but everywhere._ He wondered what he’d lost, what was left behind, if he was lying to make himself feel better about the pit in his gut when he said, _I was surprised by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt._

Jonah didn’t feel good, but maybe he would. Eventually.

Right now, he felt like he was being ripped away the life that he’d built, the one that was supposed to lead him to business school, to his father’s company, to outgrowing his position and setting out on his own to change the world.

It was gone now, that path.

His parents were gone. Jacob was gone somewhere overseas. Josh was back in business school. The school paper would go on, business club, the school play. The show went on, and, and on.

Act two was kicking off.

A kid on his own.

A kid with his teeth clenched so tight that they felt like they were bending, that was waking in cold sweats because he didn’t have parents anymore. He didn’t have –

“Jonah?” Rex was saying, hand still on his shoulder instead of the wheel. He was squeezing it, “Hey, buddy. Where’d you go?”

“What?” Jonah asked, and then coughed out a laugh. “What, I’m right here.”

“These guys are the good ones, remember? You know, I wouldn’t leave you there if I didn’t think that.”

“I know.”

He _knew_.

Rex kept telling him that they weren’t going to put him in a home that wasn’t safe and loving. He kept telling him that there were a lot of kids out there with family members that could take them and decided not to, for whatever reason, and those kids end up in great homes, but Jonah knew how the system worked. He read The New York Times and The Washington Post. He watched Law and Order.

It scared him.

He was short for fifteen. He was too loud sometimes. He talked too much. Charlie McDonald from sixth period gym class used to pelt him with dodgeballs and say he looked like a girl, and Jonah lost the only fight he’d ever been in and broke his thumb when he threw a punch wrong.

He scrapped the bottom of his shoes against the rubber floormat and forced himself to uncurl his fingers from the handle. He clasped his hands together and ignored the way they were shaking. He breathed out.

He tried to smile.

He blinked once and then twice and then forced himself to look out the window in front of him and count the yellow dashes disappearing under the hood until it felt like his heart wasn’t going to burst from his chest.

“Jonah,” Rex said again, eyes flickering to his phone in lap as they approached their exit. He looked from the phone to the rearview to Jonah and then merged into a different lane. It all took six seconds.

A lot could happen in six seconds. A life could end in six seconds.

Jonah swallowed, “Yeah?”

“You heard what I said, right? This family is a good one,” He told him. “I know you’re scared and you’re probably thinking a lot of bad things right now because of tv and movies, but listen. I’ve worked with these people before. You’re _lucky_ to be going here.”

Rex squeezed his shoulder again, “I wouldn’t let you go this far away if I didn’t believe that.”

They continued down the exit that led to St. Louis and Jonah read the signs as they passed welcoming them to the Ozark Highlands, and then to the cul-de-sac Old Spruce Road Circle. It was a quiet neighborhood with nice houses that were quaint but well taken care of, but it wasn’t as quiet or as nice as the neighborhood that Jonah spent the last fifteen years in.

Rex pulled up outside of a house with a white picket fence and a big front yard. It had blue and white shudders and hand-painted flowerpots lining the driveway. The mailbox read in blue painted letters, _Strugis Family of Angels._

There was a statue of Jesus on the front porch that looked like it had been broken and glued back together a couple times, with eyes that lit up a piercing neon blue. It was more than a little eerie.

Jonah took a breath.

He forced his hands down at his side and held onto his messenger bag as Red walked him up to the front door. They didn’t get the chance to knock before it was pulled open by a funny old man with a big smile and clouds on his tie.

He had a nametag that said _Glenn – Store Manager._

The house was a lot bigger than Jonah expected on the inside, a staircase lined up the wall and there were a coat hooks on the walls with little cross-stitched animals over each of them.

“I’m Glenn.” Jonah’s hand was taken and shaken, startling him out of his musing by the overexcited man. He introduced Jonah to his owlish wife, “This is Jerusha, my wife. We’re very excited to have you joining our little family.”

“We’ve never had a Jewish before,” Jerusha added, voice like a whisper.

“Yeah,” Glenn nodded, still smiling and still shaking his hand.

Jonah pulled his hand back slowly, racking his mind for something to say because they were staring at him like they expected him to say something. He didn’t even know what anybody would say to something as odd as that. He didn’t even know what that meant, so he shuffled his feet and counted the needlepoints over the hooks.

There were eleven of them.

Jonah thought, belatedly, that he should thank them for taking him in, but the moment had already passed and Rex was already leading him into the living room to fill out paperwork.

He kind of wished that his brothers could see him now because he couldn’t get his mouth to work properly. He wished that Jacob and Josh could hear Glenn tell him that they didn’t have any biological children of their own because Jerusha had a uterus shaped like or corkscrew or ask him if Jewish people liked snow.

“Um…. Uh, yeah. Some of us.”

Rex had stayed for the brief tour of the house and all the paperwork, and he promised that he would check in with Jonah soon and then he was gone. Jonah was standing in a room at the end a hallway with a boy named Garrett and the sounds of a violent video game echoing beneath the blood rushing in his ear.

“Now bring it in, Iceman,” Rex said as he was leaving, pulling not only Jonah into a weird half-hug and a complicated handshake but Garrett as well. He left after introducing himself to Garrett once more, walking down the hallway and out the door.

Jonah heard his car drive off through the window.

He should text Josh, let him know that he got here safe. He should, but there was a spitefulness wedged between his teeth that said that Josh didn’t deserve to know. There was a weird phantom weight on his chest that felt very, very real. It was suitcase heavy, it was brand new bed and folded clothes, and the boxset of Churchill speeches his father got him heavy.

He didn’t have parents anymore. He didn’t really have brothers anymore either. He didn’t have his lucky pencils or the crackers he liked, or the school paper.

“That guy is weird,” Garrett said, picking up his controller again. Jonah breathed out, shaking his head when Garrett asked, “Need help unpacking?

He didn’t really mean that he wanted to help.

“No,” Jonah vocalized, breathing out the word in one single exhale. He put his hands on his hips and sighed, “No, no. I got this. But thanks.”

“Whatever, man.”

The room consisted of two beds with two dressers and two separate closets. The walls were white but there were posters on Garrett’s side. There were pinprick holes on Jonah’s side like there had been posters there before, too.

It looked like a dorm.

If Jonah didn’t think a lot about it than he could pretend that he was just as Thespian Camp again. He could pretend that his mom dropped him off and promised to write, and she totally embarrassed him by kissing his cheek in front of his friends.

“Glenn wants to see you downstairs.”

Jonah turned his head towards the doorway where a girl with a blue polo and her hair in a ponytail stood with a clipboard to her chest. She was looking at Garrett and Garrett rolled his eyes.

She marked something down, “Don’t think I didn’t see that.”

“I wanted you to see it, Dina.”

“Glenn wants you downstairs now.”

“In a minute.”

“Now,” She repeated. Garrett rolled his eyes, pausing his game before throwing the controller down on his bed. He nearly ran over her foot on his way out the door.

“How does he-“

“There’s an elevator at the end of the hallway,” Dina said, sitting across from him on Garrett’s bed and leaning forward. “Dina Fox.”

“Uh, Jonah. Are you like – are you allowed to be in here?”

“I check over everybody new that comes into this house, Jonah _Simms_ ,” She said, flipping over the first page in her clipboard and folding it back. His name was written along the top of it in big block letters.

He recognized the sheet beneath the one with his name on it as the form that Rex had filled out when they first met after the accident which meant – “Is that from my file?”

“I am _very_ thorough. We don’t want a repeat of the ‘Sal’ incident, do we?”

“I don’t know who – what hap – I guess, not?”

“Exactly,” She nodded, looking down at the file and then back up at Jonah, studying him. She offered him a smile that was neither friendly nor threatening, but _something_. “Jonah Simms, right?”

“Yes,” He said, fiddling with his hands. He dug his fingernails into his palms awkwardly before gesturing at everything in the room. “I don’t think you’re, uh, allow to look through-“

“Thin form, that’s good. Well, it’s good or you’re just new to the system,” She hummed, looking him over before concluding, “New.”

She nodded back down at his form, marking on it as she read down the list, “American citizen, nice. From Illinois, won’t hold that against you. No dependents-“

“Actually, my brothers-“

“-Available, me neither. None that matter anyways, unless you count my birds,” She said with a laugh. He laughed too, awkwardly letting it trail off when all she did was look at him. “It doesn’t say anywhere on here if you have a girlfriend.”

“I don’t – is that something that Rex would want to know?”

“Well, there’s this section right here, _Other_. It’s about other information that we should know, some people put down medication dosages, allergies, girlfriends.”

“Oh, well, uh… no. No, to all of that. No girlfriend, no allergies.”

“No?”

He confirmed, “No.”

“Okay, I’ll just jot that down right here then,” She said, writing on the form. Jonah watched her with a sickly feeling in his gut like he was breaking some kind of rule. He clenched his hands together tighter until it hurt, and he said nothing.

It was clear that there was a kind of hierarchy here and she was on top of it.

“You’re heterosexual though, right?”

 _What?_ “I – is that - are you allowed to ask that?” He asked, caught off guard. “Does it matter?”

“No,” She said after a pause, clipping the papers back together in her clipboard with a stilted smile. “Oh, by the way. No Sib-Mo.”

His mouth rounded around a ‘w’ before he managed to get the words out, stuttering over them, “W-what? No – What is Sib-Mo?”

“Sib-Mo, like no homo but with siblings,” Dina explained, standing up and smoothing out the creases in her khakis. “I don’t now nor will I _ever_ consider any of you my siblings. I’d rather shoot myself than be related to Glenn Sturgis or any of the other disgusting illiterate bags of wasted flesh here. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Glenn didn’t even want me.”

Jonah startled at the sound of Garrett’s voice, turning towards the doorway. Dina fixed her papers and capped her pen, shrugging, “Yeah, I don’t care.”

“Look, man, we need to lay down some ground rules,” Garrett said when Dina left, but Jonah wasn’t really listening. The house was a lot busier and louder than he was used to, and it was kind of overwhelming on all sides.

He didn’t even know what that conversation with Dina was supposed to even _mean_.

He’d never even shared a room before.

“Yeah, um,” He nodded. “Yeah, let’s – _do_ that, but I have to go.”

**Author's Note:**

> I heard somewhere that Jonah was from New York but in one episode Mateo says that he has Illinois plates on his car, so I made judgement call. 
> 
> I've always seen Jonah as a kind of sad character, like he's desperate for people to like him and aware that they don't. He has this clenched jaw nervous energy to him and I wanted to live in that for this fic.


End file.
